Musk targets satellite business

Elon Musk has used some of his millions to successfully crack the rocket launching business with his SpaceX fleet of Falcon and Dragon rockets. Now it seems he wants to challenge the likes of Boeing, Airbus/Astrium, Thales-Alenia, Lockheed-Martin and Space Systems/Loral and enter the satellite building business.

The 43-year-old billionaire, who made his fortune by creating – and selling – PayPal, is to initially hire “several hundred” staff at a new Seattle facility designed to build lower-cost satellites.

“We’re going to try and do for satellites what we’ve done for rockets,” Musk told Bloomberg News. Speaking from his SpaceX headquarters in California, he added that the company’s Seattle factory will ultimately employ “several hundred people, maybe a thousand people.”

First batch of hirings will be of 60 people. “[It will be] primarily satellites,” said Musk in the Bloomberg interview. “But for people — really excellent talent — who want to work on rockets but refuse to live in L.A., then they can work in the Seattle office.”